Working life

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محتوى الصفحة: Home > مجلة النقل الدولي "Transport International" > Issue 19 April 2005 > Working life: Blue skies and spiral landings

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By Sawsan AL-Nufaiee, in-flight supervisor, Royal Jordanian Airlines

I joined the Royal Jordanian Airlines as a flight attendant in 1990 for a period of three years, where I was willing to perform a job full of challenges.

It took me a while to get used to an environment that is quite different from our traditional surroundings as women in the Arab countries – such as being out of the house for up to a week at a time, and working away from my home country. This of course was in addition to the challenge of dealing with the different attitudes of passengers and gaining the skills to provide them with the required standard of service.

Then I spent six years working as a planner in the scheduling and planning department of the airline, which employs around 4,000 workers. I felt it would be very useful for me to work in this department and gain a more thorough understanding of all the details, including rosters and other logistics, of the cabin crew function.

Roster logistics

One of the interesting things I learned as a planner was about sick leave. Sometimes a crew member might get sick at the last minute prior to a flight and we need to replace him or her by one of our standby crew. The standby crew often do not expect to be on board for the flight and may not welcome the change of roster, especially for long flights. This might cause some disturbance among the crew.

Another problem arises during round-trips, when technical problems occur overseas. Crews may then be due to reach their maximum working time limitation before the round trip is complete. They have to rest, according to the regulations, and as a result, the whole flight gets delayed for long hours.

Issues like these made the planning department an interesting place to work. But while I was there, I felt as though the blue skies were anxiously calling me back. I was promoted as an in-flight supervisor and currently I am still holding this post.
I have to draw upon a wide range of skills and areas of knowledge in my job. Safety, first aid, service skills, public relations, human resources and many other areas come into play.

Destination Baghdad

Whenever I am scheduled to operate a flight, I have to be prepared at least three hours prior to the scheduled departure. I conduct briefings to the crew members, in which they get introduced to each other, and where we discuss safety issues, flight information, and cabin assignments.

When the flight destination is Baghdad, I have to be prepared four hours prior to departure time. This is because of the special briefing I will need to conduct about the security and emergency issues which might occur. The protected area on the approach to the airport is very limited, for example, so we have to ensure no missiles could reach the aircraft if it were targeted. This means we have to use spiral landing, whereby the pilot begins landing without allowing the usual distance to approach the runway. We have to consider the best way to deal with the passengers, who often get very worried at this stage and ask many questions.

Before every Baghdad flight I really feel tense, the kind of feeling that we are well trained to hide from passengers. However this feeling disappears as soon as I get onboard, and it is replaced by a feeling of solidarity as soon as I meet with Iraqi aviation staff at Baghdad Airport. To be honest, seeing colleagues on the ground coping with such difficult security and safety issues makes me believe that humans can face any challenges whatsoever.

Crew challenges

During the long-haul flights from east to west, especially due to time differences, the problem of jet lag arises. Night flights can be a particular challenge, when we have to be vigilant and alert at all times.

Another great challenge I encounter is how to create harmony among the crew members, since each flight carries crews from different nationalities and different backgrounds. This makes my job more difficult, especially when the flight is short and there is a lot of work to be done. At the same time our guidance manuals impose exacting standards upon us. They are often very strict, giving precise instructions for every detail of how a given task should be implemented.

We sometimes organise social events outside working hours, in order to get to know more about each other and make it easier to cooperate during the flight.
I still enjoy encountering the passengers on board, and experiencing their different backgrounds, cultures and traditions. Also, I appreciate the opportunities my job gives me to explore great places, and I like working for a major airline with an impressive reputation in the region.

I am a member of the Air Transport Union in Jordan. However I hope that in the near future we will have our own cabin crew union, through which we can represent the views and aspirations of cabin crews and get the support we need to help us grow positively within our airlines.

الصفحة الرئيسية للأقسام:
Issue 19 April 2005

نسخة الرسومات الكاملة

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